This is an unusual English surname, which originally was only recorded in the county of Salop or Shropshire. It is probably locational from a place called Bassnet or similar, although no place in the spelling has been found. The nearest is probably Bassett, a village in the county of Hampshire, over a hundred miles away. This is possible, people moved further than that, but logic would suggest that a more likely explanation is that the name either originates from an existing place in the area which we have not recognized, or that it is from a now "lost" medieval village of which the surviving surname is the only public record of the original homestead. An estimated five thousand surnbames do originate from lost medieval villages, so this is not an unusual situation. What we do know is that the first known recordings in the surviving church registers of Shropshire are those of Edward Basnet who married Margret Gryffys as spelt, at Much Wenlock on July 21st 1570. This was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st, (1558 - 1603), and known as "Good Queen Bess".

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